The Problems of Personalization

By Lynne Greer Jolitz

November 1, 2004

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Wine.com, nýe evineyard (and many prior varietals which are unnamed), an online wine distributor, recently announced a $20 million sixth round of financing to "…upgrade the look and feel of the site, so its color and organization are more homogenous," according to George Garrick, Wine.com's new CEO.

My first impulse was to shout "Hey, I'll upgrade your site for a measily $1 million—you can keep the rest." The stunning thought that the company actually had five other rounds of funding totalling $50 million to date, actually made $25 million in "revenue" last year, and still hasn't gotten a decent web site together made me feel a bit rummy. For those not in the money game, a substantial sixth round of funding for a private company is rather unusual. I once watched a satellite company go to a series F round, but gee, it watched its investment explode several times on the launch pad. You could understand why it "blew" through funds.

Mr. Garrick, pouring out his words like an overripe vintage (why would a wine distributor be "blocking and tackling"—are they selling to fish?), topped off this investment announcement with his bold new strategy for the company: "And then in the first quarter, we'll do personalization on the site, which is an important feature for the wine category." Personalization to Wine.com means selling more merlot to somebody who bought merlot. Hmmm. What an exciting new idea. Worth every marketing dollar.

Personalization as a technology, however, is a complex and lucrative area (if done right), and pops up all over the Internet—with all kinds of humorous and occasionally insulting results. Amazon.com's "buyers of this thingamobob also bought" sales spiel has been very successful in encouraging more book sales, since a lot of people enjoy reading like materials such as "sea stories by landlubbers infatuated with the preparation of millers" (millers are rats, if you didn't know, lending a new meaning to "It's miller time") or "steamy murder mysteries by old English spinsters."

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